Chapter Six

 

 

“You okay?” Tyler Davis was the very definition of sunny blond, though in a masculine package. He always had a smile and it drew every female within a ten-mile radius to him. He also had a libido that meant he rarely turned one away.

River gave him what she hoped was an “everything’s okay here, I didn’t get my heart broken again” smile. She didn’t want him to know that it took everything she had to stay sitting in her chair. She wanted to get out into the forest. Alone. She needed that quiet time to process what had happened. “Of course. What do we know about First View Productions?”

The man who’d helped her through the last couple of years sank down into the seat across from her desk. The Mountain Adventures offices weren’t huge, but she still maintained a private office. Ty was a man of many talents—as a lot of female tourists would attest. Like many of the people in her generation, he had more than one job. He was one of two of the county’s EMTs, worked at the ski lodge as their in-house medical tech during the winter, and took shifts with her all year long. How the man found the time to sleep with an army of women, she had no idea. “I heard a rumor you met a new friend last night.”

Damn Trio. If she’d wanted privacy she should have gone to Hell on Wheels. Trio was one of the epicenters of Bliss gossip. She should have thought about the fact that the minute she left the bar with Jax, everyone in town would know. She decided to go for a casual cool. “It was nothing, really. I’m not planning on seeing him again.”

“What did he do?” Ty asked, sounding way more serious than she was used to hearing him.

“What do you mean?”

Ty leaned in, his voice taking on a much deeper timbre than usual. “I mean you walked in here looking like someone kicked your dog. You haven’t had one since Jango died, so I assume that long face is about something your date did last night. I want to know what his name is and where I can find him.”

“Whoa, slow down there.” She’d never seen him get so steely eyed. Ty was laid back. He wasn’t the kind of guy who typically got into fights. “What’s this about?”

Andy walked through the door, his lanky body in cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and hiking boots. Andy had been added to the team after everything had gone to hell. “Has Ty gone all commando on you? He heard a rumor that you got a little something something last night, boss, and he’s all kinds of worried about it. He thinks he didn’t do enough to Matt when he left.”

She didn’t like the way this conversation was going, but she was curious. “Do enough?”

“Revenge stuff,” Andy explained as he sank onto the second chair. “He thinks he should have taken Matt and cut him up into tiny pieces and fed him to the bears.”

“No, the bears did nothing wrong, and that asshole was so full of himself he’s probably toxic. Burying him would have been a good idea though. Preferably alive,” Ty said, his jaw tight. “I didn’t know what he’d done until later. I thought you two broke up because he wasn’t man enough to handle taking care of your dad, but…”

Humiliation swept over her. Yep, it was not her day. “How did you find out?”

She’d been careful to keep it from her staff. Well, from the guys. She’d told Heather, and that might have been a mistake. When the hell would she learn? When she’d had to let go of everyone except Ty, she’d promised she would hold herself apart. She’d done a damn fine job of it until Heather had hired on. Loneliness had become her weakness, as last night could attest.

Ty sighed and turned a nice shade of red. “Your dad told me a few weeks before he died. I don’t know if you remember, but I came over to sit with him so you could go into town. He asked me to watch out for you. I didn’t know what Matt had done, River. I thought the business had gotten into trouble and you had to sell things off because of your dad’s treatment. Damn it. I should have asked more questions.”

Her dad had known? She’d definitely tried to keep her situation from him, but she’d also had to spend hours on the phone trying to clear up all the debt Matt had left her with. Her dad had probably heard more than she thought he had. The cabin was small. He’d probably heard her crying.

Her father had died knowing how she’d fucked up.

“Dad shouldn’t have put that on you, Ty.”

“Yeah, he should have,” he argued. “We’re friends. You and me and Lucy, we grew up together. I should have handled it back then and I will definitely handle it now. You’re like my sister. I need to be a better brother.”

She and Ty and Lucy had gone to school together, taking the long bus ride each day to the Monte Vista school. They’d been the outcasts, huddled together to survive in the beginning. She’d always thought Ty and Lucy would get together, but they were still merely friends. River had drifted away from them over the last few years. Why had she done that? Matt had been good at separating her from her support system. “I appreciate that, but I’m fine. I spent some time with a tourist. Like I said, I won’t see him again.”

Andy frowned. “Bad lay, huh?”

He’d been spectacular. The man knew what he was doing. Her skin still tingled thinking about how he’d touched her. Like he was exploring something amazing for the first time. Like he couldn’t stop himself.

You’re so soft.

She needed to be hard. “It was definitely a mistake I won’t make again. I’ll hire a pro next time.” That was good. She would go super salty and pretend like she hadn’t woken up half in love with the man. “Now when are we meeting the production team? Are they serious about the pay? Because this is more than we would normally get for a couple of days’ worth of guided camping. What’s the catch?”

She’d learned there was always a catch.

Ty stared at her for a moment, like he wasn’t sure he should let the subject go, but he finally passed her a file folder and sat back. “They’re legit. They’ve done a lot of work with Canadian TV stations and a couple of documentaries specializing in how man is fucking up the environment.”

“Have you watched any of them?” Film types always thought everyone should know their “work.” She’d had business dealings with several of them. Hollywood had come through a couple of times in the last ten years. Some had been easy to deal with. Others she’d kind of wished she could have left out in the wilderness.

Andy snorted. “Hell, no. You know Ty can barely make it through a cartoon without falling asleep, and I’m not into documentaries. Now if they were doing a movie about an innocent pizza delivery boy who finds himself invited to a sleepover with three scantily clad sorority girls, I would be all in.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to be filming porn in the Rio Grande National Forest. I think they prefer valleys,” she quipped. She glanced down at the printouts. It looked like this production company wasn’t into the entertainment side of the business. They were known for visceral documentaries.

“Heather watched a couple,” Ty said. “She thinks they do good work. Is there a reason she’s not here? Is she not going out with us?”

She’d noticed Ty preferred to let Heather deal with setup, but he would have to handle it today. “She’ll back me up, but she’s got a family issue to deal with.”

Andy shook his head. “I thought she was an only child and her parents were out of the picture.”

She wasn’t going to blame Heather for keeping quiet about family issues. She herself should have been way quieter. “Apparently she’s got a brother and he’s a handful, so I need you to help me take notes. We’ll have to use some of the down payment to get new equipment. They’re not coming in with anything except their production stuff. The good news is it looks like they work light.”

Ty nodded. “They want to go in two-man crews. Basically a cameraman and a producer. That’s far easier than a pack of ten of them. And it’s good, too, because this is some delicate land. I don’t want to piss off the rangers by hiking a massive group through there.”

She sat back, looking at her two employees thoughtfully. “We need this job, guys. We might be able to get back on our feet sooner than I thought. I would love to be able to equip for winter.”

“If we’ve got the right equipment, I know the owner of the ski lodge I work at would let you do signups.” Ty seemed eager to do anything he could to help.

Was there a way she could save her cabin? She hadn’t actually put it on the market yet. If this job paid and she didn’t spend a dime on herself, she might be able to scrape by this winter and put off the decision about the cabin.

A bell chimed, signaling someone had walked into the building. She glanced up and Nate Wright walked in, followed by the man she’d seen walking out of his offices the day before. Fain, he’d called himself. Ezra Fain. It was good to know Nate was on her side. Apparently he was the one who’d gotten her the job or he wouldn’t be here with the crew. A massive blond god of a man wearing aviators strode in behind them.

Not that she hadn’t learned her lesson about gorgeous men. He might be nice to look at, but this was nothing more than a job. At least both men looked fit and ready to spend some time hiking.

“How does Henry Flanders fit into this?” Andy had turned, too, staring at the group as they filed in. Henry was speaking to the Nordic god.

Ty shrugged. “No idea. You know there’s a rumor out there now that Henry used to be some kind of cop, right? I have a hard time seeing that.”

She couldn’t see it either. Henry Flanders was a pacifist. She could maybe see him trying to change an attacker’s mind with a thorough discourse about the nature of good, but she couldn’t imagine the man hurting someone. “I think that’s a rumor. Like Mel’s aliens. I’m sure Henry’s with them because they’re environmentalist documentarians. Nell likely had a hand in this, too. You know her roots go deep in that community. We should go out and greet them. We can use the planning room. I’d like to know where they’re going to want to film and if they’ve got all the proper permits.”

The last thing she needed was to get in trouble with the park rangers.

“I checked their permits myself,” Ty explained, opening the door and letting River walk through.

Henry was the first to turn and greet them. “River, I wanted to introduce you to Ezra Fain. He’s the head of the team. We also brought out our lead and secondary producers. This is Robert McClellan, who’ll head the second team, and Jax Seaborne is in charge when you’re in the field.”

She stopped, the whole room going cold. She willed herself to wake up because this couldn’t possibly be happening to her. He wasn’t standing there looking at her with those gorgeous puppy dog eyes. Lying eyes. He’d told her he worked security. If she’d thought for a second he was with the film crew, she would have gone home alone. She wouldn’t have had a one-night stand with someone who might employ her at some point.

Of course, she also had promised to stop sleeping with liars and thieves, and that hadn’t worked out for her.

“River, it’s good to see you. Could we talk privately for a moment?” Jax stepped up to her, a look of concern on his incredibly handsome face. His voice went low. “I’d like a chance to explain.”

She bet he would. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. Ty spoke too soon. We’re booked up for the rest of the season.”

“No, we’re not,” Andy said, scratching his head in confusion as he looked around as though trying to assess the situation.

Ty stepped up beside her and it was obvious he’d figured out something was wrong. “It was entirely my mistake. I didn’t check the calendar.”

The blond hottie in the back groaned. “Can we skip all the posturing? Jax fucked up and pissed you off, and how much is it going to cost to get you to deal with him? You should charge the fuck out of us because he’s going to be obnoxious as hell since I sent his brother to force him out of your bed, and he’s been pissy about it ever since. He’s crazy about you, and by crazy I mean mentally unstable.”

Jax frowned at the man. “Really? You’re going that way?”

“After the night I had, I got nothing but honesty,” he said. “I also invested heavily in Adam’s new company and they just made a shit ton of cash, so I need the write-off, man. Believe me, I usually go with the lowest bid, but this was a lot of money. I slapped Adam upside the head enough times over the years to make him really smart. I can give the money to the IRS or to the nice lady who might save you from wildlife.”

She hated feeling like the butt of the joke. It was obvious they all knew about the night before. Had Jax gone around getting high-fives from all his friends? Had they laughed about it until they’d found out she was the guide? “I’m sorry. I can’t do the job.”

What amount of money was worth her pride? God, she had so little of that left. Shouldn’t she protect the tiny bit that was still hers?

Andy was frowning. “I thought we needed this job.”

Ty sent him a look that should have singed him. “We don’t.”

Nate stepped up. “I don’t know what happened, but we should talk because I think this could be good for you.”

Jax pushed past him. “Please let me talk to you, River.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she offered. “It’s simply a scheduling problem.”

No one would believe it, but she wouldn’t see them again after today. She would stay out of Bliss for a while, too. She would definitely sell the cabin. Maybe it was time to pull up stakes and move. She didn’t seem to have much luck here anymore.

Henry pulled a notebook out of his jacket pocket and grabbed a pen from one of the counter tops. He jotted something down and passed her the paper. “Ask for this.”

She glanced down and her heart threatened to stop. There was a crazy large number on that piece of paper. “Are you serious?”

Ezra took the note from her hand and nodded. “You got it. Do you want a check or a wire transfer?”

Six figures. More money than her cabin would ever bring in. Definitely more money than her pride was worth. “I’ll take the wire transfer.”

Even Ty was nodding. He’d seen the number on that piece of paper. “Yep, I think that solves our scheduling issues. Let’s take this into the conference room.”

Her stomach twisted but she had to stay cool. Jax was nothing but a regret and she had a job to do. “Gentlemen, if you’ll follow Ty. We’ll get this thing started.”

They all moved into the small planning room, but Jax held back.

Andy was a looming presence at her side, but she had to deal with this now. If she was going to take all that pretty money, she had to deal with the reason she was getting it. “I’m fine. Could you give us a moment?”

Andy stared at Jax. “Are you sure?”

“I am. Go and start mapping out some of the production sites for me.” She needed to set down a few ground rules. He might not have planned on ever seeing her again, but he would have to now. Perhaps they could come to a mutually agreed upon plan for survival.

The door closed behind Andy and she was alone with Jax.

“I didn’t want to leave you last night.”

Sure he didn’t. “It’s fine. It was a one-night stand. There’s a reason it’s called one night and not one night and half the next day. Now do you want to join the rest of them so we can get down to business? I’m going to assume since you’re here that you feel like you can be professional around me.”

“Not at all,” he replied. “But I’m not all that professional in the first place. River, I didn’t want to leave you.”

“And yet you managed it brilliantly.” The bitter words came from her mouth before she could force them down. She shook it off, hoping she had a professional smile on her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be sarcastic. Like I said before, I was having a rough night and I did something out of character. You saved me the embarrassment of waking up with a stranger in my bed.”

Except he hadn’t felt like a stranger. Being with Jax had felt natural, like something had finally gone right and she was home again. Something had eased inside her, that tight place she’d had since the day her world had fallen apart. For that whole night she hadn’t thought about anything except him, except how good he made her feel. For the first time in forever, she’d felt like she could breathe.

He went still, his gorgeous face falling. “Why would you be embarrassed?”

Because she’d gotten taken again. Because she’d been stupid enough to believe his act. “Like I told you last night, it’s not something I do often. I’ve never actually done it. I got emotional when I shouldn’t have. I woke up this morning and I was happy I didn’t have to face you.”

“I woke up this morning in a panic because I wasn’t with you.”

He said the weirdest things. He was trying the socially awkward hot guy thing on her again. She couldn’t let it work. She couldn’t do what she wanted to and reach out to him. “It’s all done now.”

His hands were fists at his sides. “I don’t want it to be over. I don’t understand. I know I screwed up. I get that. I said I was going to stay and then I didn’t, but that wasn’t my fault.”

She couldn’t help but ask the question. “Oh, really? Did someone show up and drug you and drag you out?”

He seemed to struggle with that. “Would you believe me if I said yes?”

She wouldn’t believe him if he told her the sky was blue. “Nope. And again, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to put it behind us and move on.”

His eyes were steady on hers, like he worried if he blinked she would disappear. “I don’t think I can.”

She had to lay it all on the line for him. “Then we need to find another guide. I’m not falling for this again, Jax. I’m not stupid. I know you went through my purse before you left. Now I’m not sure why. Do you roll people for cash for fun? Because it seems like you have a pretty nice job. A job you lied about.”

His eyes widened. “I didn’t do that. I swear I didn’t. River, I’m not like that. I know I lied about my job, but there’s a reason for that. I absolutely didn’t touch your purse. I…I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She shrugged. “You didn’t. It’s all good.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.” He carefully measured his words, each one coming out in a calm but confused tone. “I’m not good at this, but even I can tell your words and your expression don’t match. You want me to think you’re cool, but you’re mad at me. You’re so angry with me.”

She was angry about a lot of things. “No matter how I feel, I can be professional. Do you want to tell me about the sites you want to shoot at? I was told this is a documentary.”

He moved in. “I want to talk about us.”

She took a quick step back, unwilling to let him get a hand on her. “I’m done talking about us. There is no us and I’ve told you that several times now. If you keep asking me, I’m going to assume you’re harassing me.”

“And I’m not supposed to do that.” He looked so fucking lost, like he didn’t know how to go on. “I’m sorry. I wanted to wake up with you. I loved our night together. It was the single best night of my life.”

“Sure it was.”

He stepped back, his shoulders slumped. “If you had any concept of what my life is like, you wouldn’t question it. If there had been any way for me to stay with you, I would have. I’ll behave any way you would like me to from here on out. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. This op is important to all of us. I’ve been working on it for as long as I can remember, but I’ll let my brother handle it.”

Something about the way he’d moved away from her made her change her mind. She knew she should take any out she could get with him, but the almost shame that had come over him gutted her. And the fact that she was going to make a fortune off this job. “I’m fine working with you as long as you understand the boundaries. We’ll be out there alone some of the time. I’m not going to sleep with you again.”

He nodded but didn’t look at her. “All right. Like I said, I’ll behave however you like.”

“Then let’s join the others and get started.” She moved toward the door. It was better this way. She wasn’t sure she could stand there with him another minute without losing her damn mind and reaching out for him.

When she got to the door, he rushed by her, opening it for her, his eyes meeting hers. She could have sworn there was pain in those gorgeous orbs.

She pushed the thought aside. She wasn’t going to think about his weird, beautiful self again. But as she sat down at the head of the table, she couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he’d meant when he’d called this job an “op.”

 

 

She wasn’t going to look his way. Even when he was the one talking, she would pointedly open the folder and brush through the pages, keeping her eyes on anything but him. It was easier that way. She was still trying to find a way out. The money was incredible, but she worried if she actually went out into the forest with him, she’d screw up all over again.

Because even though he’d lied to her, he was still the single most delicious man she’d ever set eyes on.

“We’ve got two basic tracts we want to search,” he said, passing out the folders. “I’ve included maps and the grid pattern we’ll use if River thinks it’s a workable solution. You’ll note that they’re both deep in the forest. They’re off the beaten track. We’ll need to take along everything we need to survive for the days we’ll be in there. We can take a Jeep part way, but then the terrain is such that we have to go by foot or helo.”

Helicopter? He used a surprisingly militaristic vocabulary for a film producer. “I would prefer not to use a helicopter. First off, we don’t have a lot of them out here. They’re mostly used for search and rescue. We would have to borrow one or at least use their landing sites.”

“We’ve already discussed and discarded the idea of choppers,” Fain said. “Too much attention. We want to keep this low key.”

She frowned as she looked over the map, her mind putting the land into the right places. “A couple of these places are no-gos. This is all public land, but not every acre is usable by the public. There are places in the Rio Grande Forest where camping isn’t allowed. You seemed to have found most of them. We can’t even hike through some of this.”

There might still be a way out. If they couldn’t get into the place they were trying to film, there was nothing she could do about it. She wasn’t going to break the law.

Ty was staring down at the map, pointing to a big swath of forest in the middle. “This whole area is off limits.”

And there was the catch. There was nothing out there for them to film with the exception of moose and elk and the occasionally cranky bear. A couple of the spots were designated refuge areas.

She’d known it was too good to be true, rather like the man running the meeting. “What exactly are we looking for, gentlemen? I was told this was about the environmental impact of big business on the national forest land. There’s no big business out here. Unless you count Marie and Teeny. They’re talking about opening a used bookstore. Between that, the tea room, and the Trading Post, they’re kind of the captains of industry around here. I seriously doubt they’re dumping trash and used tea bags deep in the forest.”

“Absolutely not,” Henry said. “They follow all of the best recycling practices. They would never pollute anything but the air.” He shrugged. “Marie has a potty mouth at times.”

She gave him her best stay-on-task stare. “I’m serious, Henry. What’s this actually about?”

The golden god of a man who she’d found out was called Taggart set down his coffee mug. “It’s about all those zeroes you just got.”

Nope. She wasn’t going there. It was important to set some ground rules right up front. She’d done this job long enough to know that some clients weren’t worth the trouble. “Zeroes are nice. Truth is better. Look, I need the money, but I also need to keep my business. You seem to think you can walk in here, flash a ton of cash, and get me to do anything you want. I won’t do anything illegal and I won’t do anything unnecessarily dangerous. And I make the call as to whether or not something is dangerous. You are not the expert, Mr. Taggart. I am.”

“I’m a former Green Beret. I assure you, I know a thing or two about surviving,” he shot back.

“And if I need someone to save me from bad guys, I’ll give you a call. If you knew how to handle those woods, you wouldn’t need me. You would lead this party yourself.” If there was one place she still felt confident, it was in the wild.

His lips turned up in the faintest grin. “I’m far too old to rough it. I like beds and I swore I’d never eat another MRE again. When we take the kids out, my wife and I are all about the glamping.”

Fain snorted. “Sure you are.”

Taggart chuckled. “Charlie glamped my rig up. We get Netflix in that sucker. Oh, we put the kids in a tent with one flashlight between them because they need to learn to survive. We already did that. That’s why the puppies are running this show. Their backs can handle it.”

She wasn’t sure that man took anything seriously. “I have to know what I’m taking us into. You’re holding out on me and that makes me worry. If I can’t trust you out there, there’s no amount of money that will get me to risk my crew on this mission of yours.”

“It’s not a mission,” Fain insisted. “It’s a film.”

Taggart sat back, those ruthlessly intelligent eyes watching her. “We have all the proper permits. I’ll give you copies and you can make calls if you like. We’ve made all the arrangements with the National Forest Service. I assure you, those tracts of land aren’t off limits to us.”

“And that scares me, too.” She wasn’t getting a filmmaker vibe off these guys. Only the fact that Henry Flanders was in the room kept her from walking away. Otherwise, she would be worried she was getting the wool pulled over her eyes again and she was being asked to work for the mafia. She could see the big guy running some American wing of the Swedish mob. Did they have a mob? Didn’t everyone have a mob? “No one gets these permits with the exception of scientists.”

“Or documentarians trying to prove that there’s a secret CIA black ops site deep in the forest.” The words dropped from Jax’s mouth like a boulder.

Or a landmine. Yep, she was standing on a landmine, and if she moved it would explode. “The CIA doesn’t work on American soil.”

Taggart stared at Jax, an arctic look in his eyes. “I thought we were going to keep that secret.”

“She needs to know that this is dangerous. I’m not letting her walk into this ignorant.” Jax turned to her. “This team was put together because of the potential danger the job holds. Most of us are ex-military. We’re all trained. Every single man on this crew can handle himself, and we can protect you. What we can’t protect you from is whatever the hell is in that building.”

“Could I take this moment to remind everyone in here that you all signed nondisclosure agreements?” Robert asked with a grimace. “We’re going to take that seriously. You are not allowed to talk about anything that happens during this expedition, and that includes what goes on in this room.”

They were all frowning at Jax, but she was grateful at least one of them was telling her the truth. Why did it have to be him? She wasn’t going to soften. Just because he was telling the truth now didn’t mean he wouldn’t lie later. She should have known this would go south when they’d had her fill out as much paperwork as she’d given them. “We know how to be discreet. This is not our first nondisclosure.”

“Yeah, I once took a group of swingers out into the woods, and I’ve never talked about that,” Ty offered with a shudder. “I really try not to talk about it. Or think about it.”

Taggart snorted. “I’ll remember that.” He sighed and seemed to relax. “Well, go on then, Romeo. The floor is yours.”

The sarcasm didn’t seem to faze Jax. He turned toward her, his gaze serious. “It’s called The Ranch. The Agency used it to house medical experiments they wanted to keep off the radar.”

A chill went through her. “This is starting to sound like a conspiracy theory. Like a medical Area 51.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “If this is nothing but a conspiracy theory, then you’ve got nothing to worry about and we’re out a ton of cash.”

“I’m struggling with the idea that the actual CIA is here in Colorado,” Andy said. “I thought they worked in places like the Middle East. Aren’t they spies? Why do they care about medical stuff?”

It was a good question. “Isn’t the CIA supposed to protect us from foreign attacks?”

“The CIA’s mission is to gather intelligence that will protect our country from all kinds of attacks,” Fain said. “Everything from physical terrorist attacks to cyber attacks to foreign governments manipulating our systems for their own gain. The question is always how to do it. Sometimes they try to protect in extremely ruthless ways. And I assure you they have an interest in all things scientific and technological. The Agency knows the future of warfare will be on two fronts—the cyber and the biological. The time for big bombs is over. Bombs are for terrorists. Viruses are the new Manhattan Project.”

“And drugs,” Jax added. “Pharmaceuticals can be used to keep a population in line. Drugs and other therapies can make soldiers stronger.”

“Eugenics is back in play,” the man named Robert said. “Originally it was a way to manipulate the human gene before birth to make the human race stronger. It was perverted by the Nazis to build the master race. Now we use it to make sure our kids have blue eyes and not brown. But the Agency would use it to make their soldiers better, faster, stronger.”

She’d landed in some kind of sci-fi story. “How would they know who is going to grow up to be soldiers?”

“Not all DNA is manipulated before birth,” Jax said with a gravity that scared her.

“And they’re doing this in my backyard?” It was almost incomprehensible. She lived here to be away from all the crap that came with large populations of humans. She turned to Nate. “Do you believe this is true?”

Nate nodded. “Yes. I do. I also believe that these men will do everything they can to protect you. There are rumors that The Ranch has been abandoned because the current administration would likely have a problem with what went on there.”

“They shut the whole thing down overnight,” Jax explained. “And from what we understand they haven’t been back. This was a site that housed roughly twenty labs and everything that goes with medical research.”

“Like medical waste?” Ty asked. “But they would have gotten rid of that, right? We have regulations.”

“And that’s why it’s a black ops site,” Taggart pointed out. “No oversight. I assure you the EPA isn’t watching them. The EPA has no idea they exist. Neither did the Bliss County Sheriff’s Department.”

“We might have had something to say about it,” Nate agreed.

“It’s beyond mere medical waste. It’s everything that goes along with having a bunch of humans and animals in a closed space for months or years at a time.” Jax’s fingers drummed along the tabletop. “All those systems are degrading by the day. Our research indicates that The Ranch has been closed down for roughly three years. They left everything. All the doctors and staff were taken out, but we believe everything else was abandoned.”

All those chemicals. They would have used generators and chemical toilets and god only knew what else. Nature had a way of encroaching. Years of disuse would lead to ways in and out. It would affect the wildlife and the biosphere. It could be worse. “It might affect our water supply.”

Experimental drugs could seep into the water table, finding their way into the reservoirs.

Andy looked a little pale. “I think this is bigger than we can handle. You need to get the authorities involved.”

Nate’s brows rose. “Am I chopped liver?”

Andy frowned and pushed away from the table. “No, but you’re a small-town sheriff and this is a big-time problem. This could affect everyone in this part of Colorado.”

“Which is precisely why we’re asking for your help.” Jax sounded entirely too sensible. “We have to find the site and document it. Otherwise they’ll continue to let it decay or they’ll do something more drastic. Fires are common in this part of the country. A nice fire could potentially destroy all the evidence. Oh, it could also decimate the forest and possibly kill off the towns around it, but that’s what the term collateral damage was invented to describe.”

She couldn’t get out of this.

She would be stuck out there with him, and she couldn’t pawn it off because what he was doing was important. It was critical.

Her heart sank as she forced herself to look at him. She was trapped and there was no way out. In this particular game, she’d lost the second round, too.

She didn’t have high hopes for a third.